The US semiconductor giant best known for designing the mobile processors that power most of the world’s smartphones has just announced that it will be available Nvidia and AMD to make AI chips. as Qualcomm expanded its product portfolio and changed its culture, Nakul Duggal, the company’s former head of auto and smart products, says AI will usher in a new era of robotics.

“I think robots are going to be a lot bigger than people think,” Duggal said SPOKE AI Editor Jeremy Kahn at Fortune Brainstorm AI last week.

Qualcomm is in the process of changing the “DNA of the company,” said Duggal, who currently serves in an executive vice president role. Recently, the semiconductor company has expanded its AI partnerships, integrating Google’s Gemini models to deliver autonomous AI agents in the car.

Qualcomm developed driver assistance systems AMONG Features of AI such as lane-keeping, automated parking, and hands-free highway assist, as well as voice and in-car assistant, for major automakers around the world, including Mercedes-Benz, Volvoand General Motors.

The company launched its first driver assistance stack—a set of software and hardware layers that work together to make the system run with BMW—in September, Duggal said. The driver assistance stack has now been rolled out in 60 countries, he added, taking Qualcomm three and a half years. But Duggal has a bigger vision for the technology.

“We’ll be in 100 countries by the end of next year,” Duggal said.

Duggal points to companies like Waymo and Tesla as examples of the development and adoption of autonomous and driver-assisted technology, saying that it took about 10 years for innovations to reach the market.

“Ten years is a short time for the kind of adoption that society has for things like driving, which is all about what you need from a day-to-day perspective: It has to be safe, it has to be reliable,” Duggal said. “I think the next five years will move faster.”

Despite safety concerns about autonomous and driver-assisted technology powering Waymos and Teslas, many drivers like the technology. A brand new AutoPacific survey A poll of licensed drivers aged 18-plus who plan to buy new cars within three years found that 43% want to hand-off semi-autonomous driving for highway use—that’s a 20 percentage point increase from 2024.

Duggal explained that to develop a technology like this that is regulated and safe requires a foundation of clear, rules-based guardrails.

“AI is then layers on top” of that structural framework, Duggal said.